/Archive 1

Here’s wishing you a happy end to the holiday season and a wonderful 2010. Fvasconcellos (t·c) 15:12, 25 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Happy New Year to you and your family David.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 11:16, 2 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. A Happy New year to the both of you as well.Davidtfull (talk) 04:52, 3 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hi David, I wonder why you've been adding the words "synthetic chemotherapeutic antibiotic of the fluoroquinolone drug class" to the lead sentence of quinolone articles. This is really unnecessarily wordy; the fluoroquinolones are a drug class, and they are all synthetic. They are also, of course, chemotherapeutics in the original sense of the word (as are all antibacterials), but this is a little inappropriate here because (a) the word "chemotherapy" to mean "antimicrobial chemotherapy" is all but nonexistent in lay usage, and readers may therefore easily believe that quinolones are drugs meant for the treatment of cancer; and (b) our chemotherapeutic link redirects to the article chemotherapy, which refers exclusively to cancer chemotherapy! "a fluoroquinolone antibiotic" is more then enough for the standard lead sentence, or you could go with something less succinct such as "an antibiotic of the fluoroquinolone class". When the article lead is more developed, you can spread out the information (as in Linezolid).

Best, Fvasconcellos (t·c) 05:02, 15 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I was not adding the words, I was restoring them back to their original form which had been altered time and again. I was trying to keep the leads consistent as this had already been discussed numerous times in the past and every article ended up with a different take on this. They are chemotherapeutic drugs whose orgins exist in the Japanese Society for Chemotherapy who have agressively promoted the developement of this class since the seventies as chemotherapeutic agents. They are also currently being used off label to treat some cancers so the link back to cancer chemotherapy would not be inappropriate, but I had not added this link back. Someone else had on the levaquin article where I had cut and pasted that lead from.

In fact it was my hematologist who pointed the cancer useage out to me eight years ago, so this is hardly something new. Fluoroquinolones also are being used for empirical and prophylactic treatment in patients receiving chemotherapy for cancer.(There are hundreds of articles regarding the use of the quinolones in cancer patients to be found on Pub Med) Pefloxacin has been shown to have antitumoral prophylactic activity against superficial bladder cancer back in 1996. In 2004 it was shown that human non-small cell lung carcinoma cell line were highly sensitive to fluoroquinolone treatment. (The altered morphology and cell surface blebbing indicated cell killing by apoptosis.) Levaquin is also listed in the 1999 edition of the Consumer Guide to Cancer Drugs as being approved to treat cancer; "This drug is approved for cancer treatment."

The quinolones are very distinct when it comes to antibiotics for these reasons and I feel that information should be included in the lead. I know of no other synthetic antibiotic that has been used to treat cancer, but I may be mistaken. The quinolones have also been referred to as "chemotherapeutic agents" in the older Merck manuals and numerous published articles as well. So this was not an attempt at mis direction as it was an attempt to be factual regarding this distinction that sets the quinolones aside from other antibiotics. And cancer treatment will be the next "approved use" of this class once the current misuse renders them all but ineffective to treat bacterial infections.

But I had to smile at your reference to "lay usage" as when I look at the Linezolid article it contained verbage that is anything but "lay usage"; terms such as protein synthesis inhibitor, monoamine oxidase inhibitors, bacteriostatic, pharmacokinetic advantage, etc. And within the references we find (n=30) 30% of the citations included the term "chemotherapy" in their titles. That is about one out of three references. So I guess referring to the quinolone class as chemotherapeutic agents, even though they are chemotherapeutic agents used to treat some cancers, could be considered a little inappropriate as it is a factual statement that the lay person may not be comprehended correctly. Where as protein synthesis inhibitor, monoamine oxidase inhibitors, bacteriostatic, pharmacokinetic advantage I guess would be readily understood. Additionally the lay person has no idea that the fluoroquinolones are a drug class, or that they are all synthetic. In fact a lot of physician are unaware of this as well.

Linezolid (INN) (pronounced /lɪˈnɛzəlɪd/, li-NE-zə-lid) is a synthetic antibiotic used for the treatment of serious infections caused by Gram-positive bacteria that are resistant to several other antibiotics.

Ciprofloxacin (INN) is a synthetic chemotherapeutic antibiotic of the fluoroquinolone drug class [2][3].

I fail to see how the lead would be "too wordy" when it is about half the length of the lead sentence used in the Linezolid article, which you find to be totally acceptable. It appears to me that your whole objection is the inclusion of the word "chemotherapeutic", and I believe such an objection to be unreasonable. As you can see this is not a question of misrepresenting a fact. It is a question as to whether or not such facts should be included in the lead as they may scare or perhaps mislead the lay person (if I understand your argument correctly regarding the use of this word in the lead). So feel free to edit it or revert it if you feel otherwise, as I have grown quite discouraged defending reasonable edits that others often disagree with just because they reflect poorly upon the class.(sticken out as that came out rather petty) Davidtfull (talk) 14:15, 15 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I will make a suggestion if it is ok. The chemotherapeutic refers to its mechanism of action, i.e. killing bacterial cells.[1] Would it not be better to place mention of chemotherapeutic in mechanism of action section rather than the lead? This could be a reasonable compromise. Discussion of effects on cancer I think refers to modified quinolone molecules and is best only discussed briefly in the main quinolone article if it is mentioned at all.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 12:11, 16 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The research regarding using the quinolones to treat cancer does not involve modified quinolone molecules. For example within the 2004 article I made reference to here it was stated that: " As determined by Sulphorodhamine B assay (SRB assay), ALL Fluoroquinolones caused cellular growth inhibition in a concentration and time-dependent manner. Enoxacin was found to be the most effective Fluoroquinolone followed by Norfloxacin, Ciprofloxacin and Levofloxacin. Growth inhibitory effects were also found to be independent of the concentrations of serum growth factors in culture medium or variation of initial cell seeding density and proved to be irreversible in nature." (emphasis added) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15244525

Within a 2008 article is was stated that ciprofloxacin may have a potential use as a chemotherapeutic agent in the treatment of lymphoblast-derived cancer.

Another states that: "Some antitumor drugs (anthracyclines, fluoroquinolones, acridines etc.) act at topoisomerases which irreversibly bind to DNA and inhibit DNA synthesis."

And yet another: " We conclude that Moxifloxacin significantly enhances VP-16 cytotoxicity in tumour-derived cells while preventing VP-16-induced proinflammatory cytokine release."

Of further note I have refrained from making any reference to cancer treatments within any of the quinolone articles. Even though it is relevant. As such I still fail to see why we should be debating the removal of any reference to these drugs being chemotherapeutic agents, (when they are in fact chemotherapeutic agents), from the lead. What is the logic behind doing so? It is a short and brief description of what the drug is. It is a synthetic chemotherapeutic antibiotic. If we place this information within the mechanism of action section we still have failed to address the issues raised by Fvasconcellos of the reader assuming that they are chemotherapy drugs. (Even though they have been used to treat cancer patients; hence chemotherapy.)

Do you really think that the reader will pick up on the word chemotherapeutic and freak out, while ignoring the next word, antibiotic? And then think we are talking about some type of chemotherapy drug? Even though they are readily familar with the word antibiotic and may have no idea what the word chemotherapeutic even means? If so why would they not do the very same thing while reading the mechanism of action section? Does the placement make any difference if they would still make the same false assumption in their ignorance? As you can see placing it elsewhere does not solve the problem, (though the suggestion is appreciated), other than perhaps the fact that the reader may not read that section or read that far into the article to begin with. Hence never even seeing the word.

Within the liteature found on pub med we find almost a hundred instances where this term is used when referring to this class, for example:

"Enrofloxacin is a synthetic chemotherapeutic agent from the class of the fluoroquinolones..."

"RRD is a well-recognized phenomenon with the use of chemotherapeutic agents...We report here a case of RRD with the use of gatifloxacin"

"Judicious use of fluoroquinolones and other antimicrobial agents in human and veterinary medicine is essential to preserve the efficacy of these important chemotherapeutic agents."

"We propose that marbofloxacin, compared to standard chemotherapeutic agents (meglumine antimoniate and sodium stibogluconate), could be an effective and pragmatic oral route alternative to treat canine leishmaniasis."

And on and on it goes. The quinolones are referred to as being chemotherapeutic agents for over twenty years now and a significant number of articles reported their use to treat cancerous tumors (in their native form; not modified quinolone molecules). So either we use the proper identification of the class or we do not. That is the only thing to be decided here. Hiding it elsewhere within the article as to not scare the children is pointless and does nothing to address the issue raised by Fvasconcellos. And as I had stated I have grown weary of always trying to be politically correct within these articles. As such my position is that if it is proper enough to be found within the published journal articles for over two decades now, it is proper enough to be included in the lead. If it has proven to be an acceptable description within the medical community, it shoud be an acceptable description on wikipedia.

But I will not revert this if the concensus reached is to hide this known and published fact from the reader (who we are assuming to be incapable of telling the difference between a chemotherapeutic antibiotic and a drug used to treat various cancers) and delete this term from the lead or place it elsewhere where the chances are excellent that it would not even be noticed. It is my position that the average reader should be intellegent enough to make this distinction. Particularly when the text of the articles make no mention of the quinolones being used to treat various cancers.Davidtfull (talk) 12:07, 17 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Consider archiving your talk page. It's 200KB and many screens-full long now. See Help:Archiving a talk page for help. The archive-bots are helpful if you want to automate this. You can see my talk page for an example of how this is done.

By the way, you have a reply to your message on my talk page. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 19:35, 16 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the help regarding archiving the older discussions.Davidtfull (talk) 12:15, 17 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hi David, thought I'd drop you a line to let you know I'll be updating the Prulifloxacin article in the days to come, primarily adding new info about its trial findings. MatthewBurton (talk) 20:10, 5 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Please take note of a discussion ("Wikipedia and its relationship to the outside world") about medical ELs and related issues. You may want to follow the links provided to learn more if you are so inclined. Thank you in advance. I'm not looking for more comments, as there have been many already, but you're welcome to add yours if you want to. Presto54 (talk) 04:24, 7 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hi

I'm contacting you because, as a participant at Wikiproject Medicine, you may be interested in a new multinational non-profit organization we're forming at m:Wikimedia Medicine. Even if you don't want to be actively involved, any ideas you may have about our structure and aims would be very welcome on the project's talk page.

Our purpose is to help improve the range and quality of free online medical content, and we'll be working with like-minded organizations, such as the World Health Organization, professional and scholarly societies, medical schools, governments and NGOs - including Translators Without Borders.

Hope to see you there! --Anthonyhcole (talk) 07:20, 1 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Cochrane Collaboration is an independent medical nonprofit organization consisting of over 28,000 volunteers in more than 100 countries. The collaboration was formed to organize medical scholarship in a systematic way in the interests of evidence-based research: the group conducts systematic reviews of randomized controlled trials of health-care interventions, which it then publishes in the Cochrane Library.

Cochrane has generously agreed to give free, full-access accounts to 100 medical editors. Individual access would otherwise cost between $300 and $800 per account. Thank you Cochrane!

If you are stil active as a medical editor, come and sign up :)

Cheers, Ocaasi ^{t | c} 20:04, 16 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The Wikipedia Library gets Wikipedia editors free access to reliable sources that are behind paywalls. Because you are signed on as a medical editor, I thought you'd want to know about our most recent donation from Cochrane Collaboration.

• Cochrane Collaboration is an independent medical nonprofit organization that conducts systematic reviews of randomized controlled trials of health-care interventions, which it then publishes in the Cochrane Library.
• Cochrane has generously agreed to give free, full-access accounts to 100 medical editors. Individual access would otherwise cost between $300 and $800 per account.
• If you are still active as a medical editor, come and sign up :)

Cheers, Ocaasi ^{t | c} 20:17, 16 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The first edition of The Pulse has been released. The Pulse will be a regular newsletter documenting the goings-on at WPMED, including ongoing collaborations, discussions, articles, and each edition will have a special focus. That newsletter is here.

The newsletter has been sent to the talk pages of WP:MED members bearing the {{User WPMed}} template. To opt-out, please leave a message here or simply remove your name from the mailing list. Because this is the first issue, we are still finding out feet. Things like the layout and content may change in subsequent editions. Please let us know what you think, and if you have any ideas for the future, by leaving a message here.

Posted by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 03:24, 5 June 2014 (UTC) on behalf of WikiProject Medicine.[reply]

Neat news: BMJ is offering 25 free, full-access accounts to their prestigious medical journal through The Wikipedia Library and Wiki Project Med Foundation (like we did with Cochrane). Please sign up this week: Wikipedia:BMJ --Cheers, Ocaasi via MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 01:14, 10 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hi,
You appear to be eligible to vote in the current Arbitration Committee election. The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to enact binding solutions for disputes between editors, primarily related to serious behavioural issues that the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the ability to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail. If you wish to participate, you are welcome to review the candidates' statements and submit your choices on the voting page. For the Election committee, MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 14:00, 24 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Hi,
You appear to be eligible to vote in the current Arbitration Committee election. The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to enact binding solutions for disputes between editors, primarily related to serious behavioural issues that the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the ability to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail. If you wish to participate, you are welcome to review the candidates' statements and submit your choices on the voting page. For the Election committee, MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 14:06, 24 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Hi. We're into the last five days of the Women in Red World Contest. There's a new bonus prize of $200 worth of books of your choice to win for creating the most new women biographies between 0:00 on the 26th and 23:59 on 30th November. If you've been contributing to the contest, thank you for your support, we've produced over 2000 articles. If you haven't contributed yet, we would appreciate you taking the time to add entries to our articles achievements list by the end of the month. Thank you, and if participating, good luck with the finale!

Hi there! I've noticed that you haven't been active on WikiProject Pharmacology. Per our policies, your status has been moved from Active to Inactive, which you can view here. Don't be discouraged, though--we'd love to see you come back and contribute to the project! Let me know if you need any help! ―Biochemistry🙴❤ 04:27, 22 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]